It seems that 2007 should be a brighter year for Johnson & Johnson (NYSE JNJ). In 2006 the company faced major drug expirations which dampened revenue growth. I really like the Pfizer’s (PFE) consumer business acquisition. Despite having a fairly good product line, Pfizer Inc was a pharmaceutical company that happened to have consumer products which came [...]
Royal Dutch Shell‘s $7.5 billion sale to Gazprom may have been coerced by the Russian government. Vitaliy Katsenelson looks at the Sakhalin-2 sale and examines the long-term implications if Russia disregards Western investment. [I had a different title in mind for that article Russia: Screw the West, We Don’t Need Them Anymore, but my editor [...]
Minyanville.com I am not a market timer, I have no idea when the market will turn – it is too difficult to execute market timing strategy on a consistent basis, in my opinion. The worst thing that could happen to you is if you end up being right once about a change in market direction. Why? [...]
I am not a buyer of Abbott Labs(ABT) at this price, as the margin of safety has been depleted by the latest stock appreciation. But I like its latest transaction with General Electric (NYSE GE). Abbott proved to be a shrewd buyer and seller. It played Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Guidant (GDT) and Boston Scientific (BSX) masterfully [...]
T. Boone Pickens knows oil better than most people out there, definitely better than me. However, his calling into CNBC seemed like a desperate attempt to influence oil prices. I’m not a big fan of large oil companies as most of them have little or no organic production growth and they are completely at the [...]
I have tremendous respect for The Financial Times. It is a great newspaper and I am privileged to write for it on occasion. But when I see FT write “Sirius Satellite Radio is paying “shock jock” Howard Stern an $83m bonus despite a 50 per cent (their spelling not mine) share price fall since he joined [...]
Since I (unintentionally) became a member of Defend Bob Nardelli Club, I’ve received many emails telling me that Bob Nardelli didn’t do a great job managing Home Depot (HD). Most criticism is centered around Nardelli switching to using more part time labor which led to less knowledgeable employees, the less than sparkling store appearance and the [...]
The ousting of Bob Nardelli sent a wrong message to American CEOs: it taught them an incorrect lesson – manage the stock, not the company.
As Herb Greenberg mentioned in his column, if Home Depot’s (HD) stock went up while he was in charge he would still have a job, though he’d be $210 million poorer.
Bob Nardelli was a terrible stock promoter (not his job), but he did a terrific job managing the company (his job). As I mentioned in the past, from the time Nardelli took over Home Depot in 2000, Home Depot’s earnings have grown at an amazing clip of 20% a year, revenues over 15%, net margins have increased and return on capital went up every single year. The stock has not gone anywhere during his leadership because it was grossly overpriced in 2000.